The Perfect Dog

​“You don’t want a perfect dog,” said the trainer. But I do. I really do.

Alternate title: An Argument for Cloning

Ziggy, pointedly ignoring me.  Again.

Since the kids are all in school now and I am no longer the main person/influence/love in their lives, I have switched my focus to the dog. This is also possibly because I still have hope that I can mould him into a respectable member of society, whereas, with the kids, I’ve pretty much accepted that they are savages and there’s nothing I can do about it.
But the dog — maybe I can still make a difference.

***
Ziggy arrived into our home and our hearts when he was eleven weeks old. In his litter of seven, only one other puppy, a girl, looked like him: a scruffy little mop of brindle fur with big brown eyes and an unfortunate under-bite. He is ridiculously cute, as long as he is not a) wet or b) closely trimmed.

We chose him instead of her because everyone knows that male dogs calm down after they are fixed. Ziggy, however, seems to be the one exception in the world. Apparently, those things were just slowing him down.

He is a mixed breed, from a coworker’s litter; my kids say, he is half Schnauzer, half Yorkshire, half Chihuahua, and half Lhasa Apso. (I think they start fractions next year.)

***

Ziggy was embarrassingly small when we brought him home, and we affectionately referred to him as a rat on a string, and still do, even though he has tripled in size and now weighs in at a whopping ten pounds.

This is a 3-lb puppy.  HOW SMALL are that woman's hands???

He is now two years old, and still energetic to the point of being capable of exhausting me (!) and — this shouldn’t even be possible — my Very Energetic Children.

When we talked about getting a dog, my husband needed it to be hypo-allergenic. I needed it to be lazy and well-trained. I also needed at least one of the other four people in this family to pitch in and help with the dog, either actively (walking, training, brushing, feeding) or at least not counteractively.

Only one of those needs has been met. And it wasn’t mine.

In fairness, the name Ziggy does bring to mind a little zippy thing, so perhaps we should have named him Turtle or Coma, or something like that, but Ziggy he is, and wow, is he ever. And adding a puppy to a family of three-under-seven was a foolish move on my part, as everyone I know warned me.

It's far too late now.

***

Vive le Puppuccino!

When we moved to the UK shortly after his first birthday, we discovered that here, dogs are welcome on public transit and most cafes and pubs (and public health be damned, apparently).

We walked into a Starbucks, and were delighted to see dogs in the line, under the tables, on laps. The pub down the street is dog-friendly, and has two “inn dogs”, Gin and Fizzy. They live in the pub, and entertain the kids to no end, creating a lovely atmosphere for proper adult conversation while the children play somewhere else in the pub with strange dogs. It’s very civilized.

I immediately decided that my then-12-month-old bundle of energy would accompany me and my laptop to the coffee shop and the pub for “working lunches”. It would be perfect: Ziggy would get a little walk — an outing if you will — and then settle down respectably under the table while I sat, leisurely sipping tea and writing, as one does in coffee shops. Think of the fresh air! The creative element! The chai lattes!* (and yes, the puppuccinos.)

What I didn’t bargain on is that, not only are all English pub dogs of my acquaintance exceedingly well trained, they are also naturally calm.

Ziggy is neither.

Before we brought him home, I read so many books. I had helped train a larger dog when I was 20, and was sure that I had it all figured out. Once he was home with us, I kept reading the books, and subscribed to various “ethical dog training” YouTube channels. I signed him up for Puppy Kindergarten as soon as there was an opening, and despite his being the smallest pup in the room, Ziggy stood out for his confidence (kaff — small dog syndrome) and his inability to settle down or walk on a leash.

Our very first homework assignment was to “do nothing”. I was supposed to take him to a park bench, sit on it, and when he calmed down and sat on his own volition, I was supposed to reward him with a pat and maybe a treat. It’s been over two years, and although I have sat on many a park bench for extended stretches of time, he has still never done this.

When he was a bit older, I took him to a Basic Good Manners course, where he still wouldn’t settle down or focus, but did very well at short-attention-span tricks, as long as he really wanted to. Generally, if I was holding bacon- or lamb-based treats, he tended to probably listen, but otherwise, no.

***

“Needs-Therapy” Dog

After about 18 months of having a dog that spun around all the time and wouldn’t let me accomplish anything in my home office or Starbucks “office”, and always pulled on his leash and wouldn’t come back at the off-leash parks, and barked at me from under the chair at pubs and cafes, I hired a trainer, one-on-one, to fix my dog. She had the same philosophy as the books and classes we’d already taken, and I’d seen her in action with him.

She was amazing. As a person, she was super knowledgeable, had a presence that Ziggy was mesmerized by, and was just so freaking cool. AND she used to be a dolphin trainer! I tried to work “can I be your friend?” into our training session, but couldn’t find a way to do it naturally.

She gave me some drills to do with him that would help with sit/stay and loose-leash walking, and told me that because of his four-terrier mix, he would be immature longer than other dogs, very smart, and very stubborn.

Fantastic.

She also said, “You don’t want a perfect dog. Perfect dogs are boring.”

Yes, well. I can give you a list of what kind of not-boring dog I don’t want:

• one who marks on everything: furniture, curtains, every post and bush, and people;
• one who pulls so much on his own leash that he cuts off his air supply and makes horrible choking noises;
• one who will not come back if off-leash, meaning that I have to chase him. With his small size, he is extremely quick and turns on a dime, and it’s really embarrassing to run around after him, especially because I usually fall down;
• one who barks at me from under the table at a coffee shop, so I have to leave before we are asked to leave (again);
• one who will deliberately turn his back on me and ignore me;
• one who looks at me with a perplexed expression when I ask him to sit, even after two years of training in such a way that I am sure he is saying, “Sit? What is ‘sit’? This word you are using… I honestly have never heard that word before. Are you sure this is the word you are meaning to use?”

Coincidentally enough, Ziggy is all those things (though his endearing peeing-on-people phase stopped when we cut off his… erm...euphemisms). He isn’t as bad as the legendary Marley, but probably only because he is small, and thus his potential for destruction is limited to the things he can reach.

He is not lazy, nor boring, and I really, really wish he were. I wanted a dog that could be designated a Therapy Dog, so I could bring him to the office. Now that I know my dog, I know that he is more of an Anxiety Dog, one that makes people more nervous than when he walked in. I consider myself his Therapy Human, even though I’m on the twitchy end of the continuum myself. The only time that he is relaxing is when he acts as “Dr. Ziggy” a calming presence who instinctively licks away tears (which, despite his doggy breath is an oddly comforting behaviour) and cuddles with you when you’re sick.

At every other time, he circles and looks around anxiously.

In an effort to find a way to calm him, I purchased oral and topical herbal treatments that are supposed to be calming, but they have no noticeable effect other than making him smell like a wet (still excited/won’t-calm-down) dog who also has a slight lavender scent and verbena doggy breath.

***

FutureDogZiggy (2.0)

Strangers stop us in the street to comment on his cuteness and personality, and to ask about his mix, which the kids always helpfully provide. Due to his looks and behaviour, most think that he’s still only four months old, and I try not to disillusion them, because that would mean admitting that he is very poorly trained, and it’s probably my fault.

Would I trade him in, though? What if he could have a different personality behind those sweet eyes and crooked underbite? If he looked the same, but his essential spirit, his Zigginess was gone, would I still love him? My son asked if we could clone him, so we’d never have to be without him. I told him that we probably technically could, but that he wouldn’t be our Ziggy anymore, he would just look like him.

Pet Sematary aside, on most days, I dream about that clone.

***

The first weekend with Ziggy, when I still Thought Things Would Be Different. 
Note the size of the puppy compared to the 6-year-old's hands.  There were obviously shenanigans afoot.

But, for now...

Ziggy doesn’t walk but struts, and when he runs, he bounces like a bunny, ears flopping around, joy emanating from every square inch. When he’s (finally) relaxing in the back seat of the car, which somehow relaxes the kids, I sometimes turn around and ask, “Isn’t it amazing that we somehow ended up with the Best Dog in the World?”


Karen (Power) Hough is a writer and blogger with an Honours BSc. in Human Kinetics and would get a lot more done (and spend a lot more time in cafes) if her Office Dog were calmer. Her part-time “superhero job” has been as a fitness instructor for over 20 years. She currently lives in London with her husband, three energetic kids and a codependent dog, and bores/impresses them all with stories about how she used to be a nutritionist, personal trainer and national-level fitness competitor.


This article was originally published on Medium.com.  If you liked it, feel free to go there and give it a clap or two? (No pressure!)


* but evidently, not the London Fogs.  

Identifiably Me

At some point every year, I look at who I am, who I’ve become, and realize that I was probably never going to be exactly what I set out to be (an artist/ballerina/astronaut who owns a tiger). For better or for worse, I’m not even close.

That’s right, I still don’t own a tiger.

I compare the current me to the me of last year, the me of five years ago, or even me as a (horribly awkward) teenager. This is always a painful and depressing process, because although I’m happy to not be an adolescent anymore, the last time I checked, I was also neither an artist, a ballerina, nor an astronaut. So, who am I?

Full disclosure: at the risk of alienating a huge number of mothers, I try not to let “being a mom” define me. Sure, I have three kids — and don’t get me wrong, I love them — but before I was “Vaughn’s mom”, I was… well, I was pretty awesome.*

Before kids, I paid for my own university education, and rent, and books. I bought a car right after graduation, and a motorcycle a little while after that. I was, in turns, a professional cheerleader (2001–2006), a personal trainer (1998–2003), and a national-level competitive fitness athlete (2001–2005). I was amazing, in retrospect.

Since kids, I have held several, more “grown up” jobs, some super cool, some not so cool. I have kept three kids — who all started out pretty scrawny and helpless — alive and (mostly) healthy for quite a while now, and (sometimes) I am proud of their manners and abilities, but I still struggle with “children” being an accomplishment, or something I can really brag about.

There’s always the nature/nurture argument, which means (to me) that I can choose to take total responsibility when they’re being good — by which I mean being asleep, of course — or wash my hands completely when they act like rabid werewolves, point to my husband behind his back and whisper, “poor breeding stock,” with a what-can-you-do shrug.

So, we’ve established that “Mom” isn’t my identity.

As a child, I was a proper redhead. Not strawberry-blonde, not orange, but red. Freckles? Temper? Check and check.

I was constantly asked where I got my pretty hair, and I would repeat that my father, whose hair I always saw as dark brown, had had red hair when he was a boy.

In university, I dyed it several times: black, dark brown, highlights, stripes, all to stop it from being so red. All I ever wanted was shiny, straight medium-brown hair (the sort my middle daughter has), and I never got that. I got “Annie” and “Anne of Green Gables” and “Pippi Longstocking”.

Now, though, I have darkening-while-somehow-fading hair. My youngest has shiny, smooth strawberry-blonde (orange) hair, and people turn to me and ask me where she got it from.

Being a ginger is a weird thing to have as an identity, but every redhead knows it is. We’re told over and over that we’re becoming extinct, that only 2 in every twenty-five people have red hair. That we are special. My hair was a free pass and a motivator to be more volatile and …fiery?… than I would have been otherwise. And now, it’s gone.

What does that leave?

I was a redhead ( — 2012).

I had defined six-pack abs (1999–2008).

I roller-bladed everywhere (1995–2005).

I drove a Honda Shadow 500 (1998–2006).

I was a manager and an analyst (2011–2017).

I drive stick (1993 — ).

I’m a good cook (2009 — ).

I’m a runner (2017 — ).

I’m a writer.

I’m funny and smart.

I’m kind.

I’m really fit.

I’m a mom.

I am me.

Illustration by Don Nedobeck.  I own this as a print, and it's true.

* my own assessment, definitely not my husband’s, who finds me-with-swagger (even more) unbearable (than usual)

Karen (Power) Hough is a writer and a blogger with an Honours BSc. in Human Kinetics, and would trade her office dog for a tiger in a heartbeat.  Her part-time "superhero job" has been as a fitness instructor for over 20 years.  She currently lives in London with her husband, three energetic kids and a codependent dog and bores/impresses them all with stories about how she used to be a nutritionist, personal trainer, and national-level fitness competitor. 

Declutter! De Clothing! De Chaos!

Decluttering makes me happy. Please don’t look at my desk.

Marie Kondo is everywhere. I mean, I haven’t (yet) watched her Netflix show or read her book(s?), but I keep hearing her name connected to the art of decluttering, and boy, does she look happy on the covers.

Even before her “revolution”, I loved decluttering more than anything else. We have (until recently) lived in homes that are small and/or low on storage, and at least one of us is a packrat…possibly four of us. When kids go to bed or husbands travel, many, many things quietly find their ways to new homes in donation bins, recycling bins, and garbage cans. And this makes me happy.

So, um, this is my desk. I am a beautiful paradox.

We had boxes that we packed for a move across Canada, that sat in our basement (unopened) for three years, moved back across Canada again, sat in our basement again, and then, when the basement flooded, were moved out to our garage. Still unopened. They sat there for four more years. I had little parties out there, reducing ten unopened-for-seven-years boxes down to six, then to three… by the time we moved to our next house, we had only two, well-edited boxes of crap that my husband wouldn’t let me throw out. I see this as a win.

I started sorting through our closets again last week to reduce the overflow, get rid of too-short or Sunday clothes (because they’re holey… get it?) and stop myself from saying “I have nothing to wear” when, in fact, every drawer is full.

This is the handy checklist I used to determine what to keep and what to get rid of:

Have you worn it in the last year? (Note: This one is optional for me. I do have to keep room for different climate- and career-based storage, as my current reality as a writer/personal trainer in London (rainy, low of -2, sweatpants) is a far cry from my senior paralegal/fitness instructor reality in Canada (hot, rainy, snowy, low of -35, suits and heels) and I am NOT going to buy all new suits and snowthings.)

Is it missing a button or needs to be hemmed?

Will you really take the time to sew on a new button or hem it?

Is it full of holes?

That weren’t put there by the designer?

Does it look worn out, faded, or cheap?

But not in a good way, I mean?

Is it so tight that you can see underwear lines through it?

What? You weren’t wearing underwear in that photo? Huh.

Did you wear the item when you were pregnant?

And is your youngest child older than five?

And you’re still wearing it? Really?

The bathing suit too? Really?

Did it fit you when you had lost 15 lbs from a combination of the flu and a really bad breakup, and you looked like a skeleton, but hasn’t fit you since, but you kept it because maybe one day you’ll be wasting away on your literal deathbed and want your hospice aide to help you wear those teeny sparkly jeans again?

Really?

My youngest has a much better, quicker method, which she explained to me clearly when she was three. My mom had knitted both girls sweaters, and the five-year-old put hers on and dashed off to play. The little one tried hers on, took it off, and said, “Give it to Carmen.” (Carmen was her best friend at daycare.)

“But,” I said to her, “Your Grandma made it especially for you! Don’t you want to wear it?”

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel happy.”

The answer to that one question, “Does it make me feel happy?” (with perhaps an exception given for my super-comfy, worn-during-three-pregnancies maternity hoodie), for all of my items-in-question, of course, is a resounding, “No.”

And that was it.

I got rid of a sizeable pile of clothing and shoes, and, while I admit that there is still an embarrassing amount left, I looked at each item, trying it on as necessary, to see if it made me feel happy. If it fit funny, pulled, gaped, squeezed, or required more-than-the-usual-amount of tummy-sucking, it was gone.

Next up: the kitchen counter, which I can’t even look at without weeping.

And don’t even ask about my desk.

Update:  I spoke to a friend about the Konmari principle (still haven't watched the show) and it IS all about keeping only what brings you delight.  Obviously, my daughter is a genius.  ~KH

Karen (Power) Hough is a writer and blogger with an Honours BSc. in Human Kinetics, and dreams about living in an IKEA showroom. Her part-time “superhero job” has been as a fitness instructor for over 20 years. She currently lives in London with her husband, three energetic kids and a codependent dog, and bores/impresses them all with stories about how she used to be a nutritionist, personal trainer and national-level fitness competitor.

Time makes you bolder, children get older...

TEN YEARS????  What happened?  

(Stevie Nicks, I'm talking to you! 

(Readers, play this clip in the background.)

First born son reaches milestone of ten years

It's been ten years since we first met this kid, and he's much bigger now. 

(He's still cranky, however)

He is almost -- almost -- as tall as I am, and that's no good. His hair still sticks up, and his smile still melts hearts. He is as challenging as he is super-smart, confident, funny and articulate. He loves Lego, music (currently into Twenty-One Pilots) and books. He's a good swimmer, is working towards his brown belt in Mo-Gei-Do, and sometimes can be persuaded to run. When it really, really matters, he is the kindest boy in the world. At all other times, he is a ten-year-old boy, especially when it comes to his sisters, for whom he has little patience.  Oh yes, and video games: he loves video games more than everything and everyone else in the world put together. 

We celebrated his actual day with dinner out, and cupcakes at home.

 Because he's ten, and smarter than us, he convinced us that he's old enough to light his own candle. I am proud of many things in my life, and one is that I managed to catch this magic on video:

A week later, he invited his best friends from school to an escape room adventure.  They were locked in with Chris until they solved the puzzle. All escaped with their lives, but just barely.

V had asked for a Lego cake, so we used the Lego minifigure mold we picked up in Denmark...but how should I decorate it? 

Aha!

Two hours to decorate, under four minutes to devour.

Cheers, little dude.  Keep it up!  

xo 

Mommy

Boot Camp 2019

I am currently lucky enough to live in a climate that allows for all-weather outdoor workouts, so for the past 18 months, I've managed to Embrace Winter!TM.  But this time around, I'm sincere.*

My running group runs in all (London) weather:  sun, wind, rain, rain, rain, and a little bit of snow.  But mostly rain.  Early on, before I found these amazing women, I found local trim trails, and was always impressed by the fitness level and creativity of their superfit users.  I still am, in fact.  There are always people working out at parks, with trainers and groups or alone, with boxing pads, jump ropes, elastic straps, and TRX equipment, no matter how cold and wet the day.  It's wonderful.

My first experience with "boot camp" was circa 1997.  I worked as a fitness trainer, and the gym started to offer a boot camp-style fitness class for the lunchtime exercisers.  I recall the instructor wearing camo-print pants, the music being louder than normal, and the participants shouting "Camp!" as loudly as they could whenever she yelled, "Boot!"  There were pushups, burpees, jumping on and off of aerobic steps... it looked like fun.

About ten years later, I had the opportunity to teach some boot camp-style classes myself, and I liked them; they were simple but tough, with no tricky choreography, full of body-weight, multi-joint movements and a disconcerting-yet-addictive mix of sadism and camaraderie.

A typical (if there is such a thing) class can be done anywhere, with as little or as much equipment as the instructor likes.  Calisthenics are foundational; here you learn how to work with the body you've got and how to make it work for you, with pullups, pushups, situps and squats.  There are challenges, as well, to manipulate very large objects: running with eight other people while holding a giant rope above your head, or climbing over and under a really big log come to mind as "two things that you wouldn't even question at boot camp but probably wouldn't float any other time". 

Tire flipping.  Park bench step-ups.  Relay races. 

Boot camp goes back to not only the basics of fitness (strength, endurance, flexibility, agility and balance), but also the games that children play and the movements that they do naturally, just because they're kids.

Last May, one of the runners suggested meeting with her trainer for a boot camp session.  I agreed to try it out, and four of us showed up at a local park.  Week after week, rain or shine, Shane put us through our paces, quickly sized up our strengths and weaknesses and made sure we paid for them (for me, an inflexible lower back and a weak core).  We did rugby drills and medicine ball slams.  We did pullups and bear walks.  As the summer drew to an end, he approached me to ask if I would be interested in taking on some classes with his studio, Brick Fit House.  I was in the middle of refreshing my fitness certifications to UK standards, and had insurance, and there it was. 

So now, I'm running my own boot camp again, my way.  We currently wear layers and mittens, but we're still there, every week, getting #fittertogether.


Join us, Thursdays at 10 am.

For more details: 
Twitter: @kapowfit 
Insta: @kapow.fit
www.brick-fit.co.uk





*unlike past Embrace Winter!TM attempts which, as I may have mentioned, may have been done only to impress a boy (or two).